Railing thru Europe: Stop 5.1 Switzerland – Interlaken | Travel Blog

Railing thru Europe: Stop 5.1 Switzerland – Interlaken

Posted by ourjotterbook on Friday, June 25, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Travelling by rail from Florence to Interlaken, Switzerland, requires a transit via Milan and Spiez with the total combined traveling time estimated about 4hrs. By the time we arrive in Spiez, the sun was already setting but we could still see the surrounding mountains and Lake Thun.

We had to wait for 45mins for the next train to Interlaken giving us sometime to take in the beautiful landscape around us.

Nice view of Lake Thun outside Spiez train station

Something good happened just as we reached Interlaken train station. We met an old man from Wales while trying to find our hostel. He said he needed to find accommodation as he did not make any reservation prior to reaching here. While we were walking along, he shared with us the places that he visited in Switzerland for the past couple of days and most of his trips were planned as he goes along. I have to say, we really admired his zest and impromptu spirit to travelling for his age while unlike us, slumped onto our rocking chair watching TV and the furthest we would probably venture to is the nearby coffeeshop by the time we are both past our seventies. It was late in the night, so we suggested to him to try asking for vacancy from our hostel as we reckoned it is just gonna be a 5mins walk from the train station. So the 3 of us ventured in the dark, in unfamiliar Interlaken, in search of our hostel. Luckily, just as we thought we were lost, we met someone who was staying at the hostel that we booked and she showed us the way. whew…

Unfortunately for the old man, the owner of the hostel (a very amicable old lady named Heidi) didn’t have what he had in mind and since it was already quite deserted outside, J accompanied him to search for another place of lodging.

While waiting for J, 2 adorable fat cats came meowing outside Heidi’s doorstep. I bent down and started playing with the 2 chubby visitors before Heidi came back with some pet food for me to feed them. I felt so at home already even though we haven’t settled down in our room.

J came back half an hour later and told me after going through several B&Bs and guesthouses, they managed to find a decently priced hotel for our old friend. Heidi wanted to reward us for being so helpful to the old man and she upgraded us from a 6 bed dorm to a private ensuite double! Wow! Talk about one good turn deserves another! Switzerland seems to love us and we love swiss the same!

It was only the next morning that we fully appreciate the amazing view through our balcony. The moment we stepped out of our balcony, we were absolutely stunned and in awe of the beauty this place has to offer. How many people can actually get to experience the feeling of stepping into your balcony and have mountains staring back at you?

It was a beautiful day...how can J be still sleeping?

Chi-chi boutique of fine swiss chocolates

When we arrived at the tourist information centre at midday, we were told that it would be too late to go up to the Jungfrau today as it is meant to be a full day trip so helpdesk guy suggested us to do the Schilthorn instead. It is quite an exuberance price to pay to scale the summit of Schilthorn and Jungfrau for us poor travellers especially when our Eurail passes gave very limited concession but we figured it’s hard to give it a miss when you are all the way in Interlaken and not do anything. So even though our minds are struggling, we handed stacks of colorful francs to the people at the ticket counter. Visualizing the heavenly scenics that awaits us, we anticipated the arrival of our train as getting to the summit of Schilthorn required a series of train and cable car rides.

After the train ride to Lauterbrunnen, we hopped onto a cable car.

Then at Grütschalp, we need to take a train again.

Passing by staggering views of snow-capped mountains and vast green pastures. No wonder some said summer is the best time to visit Switzerland.

Feeling upclose with the snow tip mountains

After stopping time and again on our way down for photos, we reached Mürren cable car station.

Refreshing mountain stream water

We are almost there but still we need to take one more cable car ride before we reach the snowy peak of Schilthorn

White mist engulfed our cable car as it travels higher up. it is as if we went into a cloud on our way to heaven!

Haha it was pointless for J to do that. We learnt that in future we should check the Schilthorn webcam on the website to see if the view is clear before spending the money to come up. It was a sunny day but up there at the summit, it was very cloudy.

I guessed we were down on our luck, if not, we would have seen this million dollar view.

It was a shame but we thought we got ourselves a quaint and surreal experience of being up in 'heaven'

The diagram shows what is supposedly to be ahead of us. Panorama views of the surrounding mountains - Titlis, Jungfrau, Mönch, Eiger as well as the Jura and Vosges Mountains.

The summit of Schilthorn is home to the film set of the 1969 James Bond film "On her Majesty's secret service". However, this panoramic revolving restaurant named Piz Gloria appeared desolated and i am sure you know why.

Snippets of the 1969 film was screened

On our way down...back to lush green pastures and sunny skies

Para-gliders are a common sight. It must be wondrous to have a bird eye view of the idyll land of Switzerland beneath.

I was intrigued about Gimmelwald prior to coming as i read from our Lonely Planet book that a anonymous traveller left a note in Mountain hostel's guestbook which say "If heaven isn't what it's cracked up to be, send me back to Gimmelwald." and here we are...at the exact place mentioned!

This cute furry friend stalked us for some distance. I guessed it wanted a photo taken. hee

From here, we had to take a coach back to Lauterbrunnen

The day after, we set off early for a full day trip to Jungfrau. We were really fortunate that day as a very kind-hearted French lady waiting in line with us gave us one of her extra ‘50% off’ coupon which really helped ease our wallets of paying the hefty price. Bless that lady! Perhaps it was heaven’s way of condolence for us missing the panoramic view at Schilthorn.

From Interlaken Ost, we took a train to the valley of Grindelwald.

At Grindelwald, we hopped onto this open view train which presented us a scenic experience of the beautiful landscapes as we meandered thru hill slopes and saw herds of swiss cows and friendly farmers waving at us as we passed by their farms as we go along.

At Kleine Scheidegg, we switched to the train that runs all the way up into the mountains from Eiger and later arriving at the highest railway station in Europe, the Jungfraujoch.